European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I am in your Lordships’ hands because I have already spoken, but I felt that the time may have come for me to respond briefly to the points raised by noble Lords. I see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, nodding. I apologise to my noble friend but I did get that sense. I am extremely grateful to everybody who has spoken. It is wonderful to see some people who I have not seen for a while. I promised myself that I would tell the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, that I enjoyed ““American Idol””, in which he featured. I am a huge fan of the programme and I think that the right guy won. The noble Lord will know what I mean by that. At the beginning I said something about the transcript and that I was slightly shocked. I was shocked because I understood that the process normally adhered to is that members of the committee receive the uncorrected transcript, but normally the witness receives it as well and has a chance to comment. I had not seen it until after the noble Lord, Lord Hunt Wirral, who is not on the committee, had made reference to it. I do not know how the noble Lord got a copy of it, and I have tried to find out exactly why I did not get one. I have no objection to the noble Lord having a copy, but if I looked startled, that was what it was about. I hope to get an answer to that today. I want to explore the myth that this 13-week timetable may be infinitely moveable, flexible or is somehow known about long before the proposals come forward. Although we may know in general terms where proposals might be coming forward, it is my personal experience—and probably that of other noble Lords who have been in the same position—that until the proposal is received on the first day of the 13 weeks, one is not sure exactly what is in the proposal and or what the position should be. I would not want that to be misunderstood. Equally, like other Governments, we believe very strongly in consulting properly on what is in those proposals. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, will remember that he chaired meetings at the Bank of England for me on Rome I when we were looking at the proposals. So it is a very tight timetable and that is one of the factors that I have tried to take into account. I am extremely pleased that noble Lords have thanked me for my contribution to the Constitution Committee. It was a great privilege to appear before the committee. I am delighted that of the four people who have put down their names to move this amendment, three have already indicated that they are satisfied with what I did. I accept that everyone is speaking in a personal capacity but I hope that the House will take note of that. The noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said that we must be absolutely sure that we cannot go backwards in a review. That will be written into the procedure to make sure that that could not happen. The review is intended to refine and move forward, not to dig up what is agreed in this process. The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, wanted to ensure that there is a guarantee of a debate and not just the usual channels and so forth. We will write that in to the scrutiny. I know that the usual channels will be comfortable with that and we will find a form of words. As I indicated, I think that the best way forward is to put alongside this a separate scrutiny reserve resolution that your Lordships will see again, debate and vote on in full before it is approved. That should be drawn up in conjunction with the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. It will be drawn up with Mr Connarty in another place so that it is absolutely clear that the procedures of each House will be fully adhered to. The promises and commitments that I have made will also be adhered to. That will be amendable in your Lordships’ House. In response to my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Aberavon, the vote on the proposals that might come out of the committee would also be an amendable resolution. It is not the equivalent of a statutory instrument, which I know is one of the concerns of noble Lords. I talked in the committee about the difficulties of a vote in both Houses leading to a deadlock, not least because of the 13-week timetable. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, is right—some of these issues are minor and technical, some of them are more substantive. Although I know that in my conversations with noble Lords the focus has been about whether the Government choose to opt in, it is also important to look at whether they choose to come out of something. That is very important. It may well be that the day would come when a committee of your Lordships’ House felt that it was important that the House debated and voted on whether the Government should pull out of something, in the interests of this country. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, was concerned that these might come in packages. It has never been my experience that they come in packages, and even if we had them coming one on one, they are all separate legal instruments that must be debated under the proposal and voted on individually. It is not a case of packaging it all together; they would have to be taken separately. As I have already indicated, we do not always know at the beginning of a year exactly what will be forthcoming, but we can set out our strategy and our view on the issues that we know will be coming up. I say to my noble friend Lord Rowlands that what my noble friend said in Committee about not necessarily being aware of all the issues around justice and home affairs and the opt-ins led to the proposal for an annual report at the beginning and an annual review at the end. It is entirely down to what he said that that will happen. I am delighted that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, is satisfied. I am looking at the judiciary. I do not have to have it for this process, but I have taken it on board and I have fed it in, as the noble and learned Lord would expect. I promise to come back to him on that. A number of noble Lords, not least the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, have asked about the 13 weeks, which is a very strict deadline. After 91 days, if you are not in the proposal, you are not participating in the discussions and debates. You are not in the working groups, you are not influencing the decisions and you are not supporting other member states that would find it incredibly valuable to have the UK on-side. You are not amending the proposal, which may be fine, but which you may like to see made stronger. You are not there, and you are certainly not being allowed to speak in the discussions of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on the issue, because you are not part of it. When the process is complete, we could, if we wish, seek permission from the Commission and the Council to join the proposal, and that may well be forthcoming. However, it would be on a proposal that we would have had no say in, which we may have initially thought was in the interests of the UK, but which could be made stronger. That is an important point—